Updated at 6:56 p.m. and 7:24 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Jurors took only two hours – over lunch – to decide John Allen Booth Jr. was guilty on all counts in his triple-murder trial in Lewis County Superior Court today.
Booth, 32, faces a sentence of life without the possibility of release under the state’s so-called three strikes law.
[1]John Allen Booth Jr.
The former Onalaskan was convicted of first-degree murders for the deaths of 16-year-old David “D.J.” West Jr. and 50-year-old Tony Williams of Randle. He was convicted of second-degree murder for David West Sr., 52, and the attempted murder of Denise R. Salts, 52.
All were shot in the head.
The shootings took place Aug. 21, 2010 inside the Salkum-area home where the Wests and Salts had lived less than a year.
Lewis County prosecutors described the shootings as attempts to eliminate witnesses after West Sr. brought out a shotgun which prompted Booth to shoot him with a 9 mm pistol. The visit by Booth and his former prison cell mate Ryan McCarthy was related to “taxing” West Sr. on behalf of drug dealer Robbie Russell, according to prosecutors.
The eight-man, four-woman jury also found Booth guilty of attempted extortion and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm.
Booth stood quietly beside his lawyer facing the judge, hands in trouser pockets, as the court clerk read the verdict, his eye lids dropping for a slightly long blink when he heard the word guilty.
The jury found he committed the offenses with a firearm, which adds time to a sentence, as well as determining Booth displayed or demonstrated an egregious lack of remorse in the slayings of David Jr. and Williams.
Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher and Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead described those killings as executions.
The 6-foot-3 Booth leaned back, elbow on the defense table and turned his chair toward jurors as they were polled one by one on the verdict.
When it was over, he made the comment, “Vote for Barack Obama.” Nobody replied.
Afterward, outside the courtroom, Meagher said: “This victory goes to law enforcement.”
“They caught this guy after on a manhunt after a week,” Meagher said praising the detective work.
While jurors asked to confer with the attorneys when it was over, defense lawyer Roger Hunko left without speaking to them.
“I really don’t have anything to say,” Hunko said as he packed his files into his car’s trunk outside the courthouse. “It is what it is.”
His client already has two “strikes” so another serious felony means his sentence will be life without parole, Hunko said.
When Booth took the witness stand yesterday, he denied being at the house except for earlier in the evening when he visited to collect money for a pound of methamphetamine he said he had “fronted” West Sr.
He will be sentenced at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.